After the Fall
by unutterably stupid dragon
Summary: After 9/11 it was difficult to know whether to react or not in writing. UFO provided a way to deal with the shock and anger
1. Chapter 1

Back in 2001, I had some issues with dealing with the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers, The World Trade Center, in my fan fiction. A couple of other writers wrote the tragedy into their stories and that made me rethink my first decision. This is how two SHADO characters deal with the assault and the aftermath. This is not my usual UFO universe.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be. Not for prophet … er … profit.

After the Fall

September 2001

NYC/Washington, DC

Outside the Attack:

Morning. Get up. Set the coffee to perk. Shower. Shave. Shove the grumpy teenaged daughter out of bed and into the bathroom. Glower at the bright morning sky. Inhale steam off coffee cup and wonder how your predecessor managed to live with English coffee having grown up on this dark, bitter American stuff. Wonder how you're going to live with it until they let you go back to England where you belong.

"Dad ?"

"Yes?"

"TV?" plaintive request from sleepy eyed daughter.

Roll your eyes and turn on the TV. Remote control the size of your cell phone with more buttons than a scientific calculator, you think. CNN. Smoke coming out of a tall building. Another disaster.

Then you both focus on the site. The Twin Towers. The World Trade Center, the top floors of one of the towers engulfed in black smoke. Jaws drop. You both feel for the people involved in the incident. Then the plane zooms in, stage left. What the Hell? A cold, cold pit develops where heart and stomach used to live as the jetliner slams into the second tower, fiery balls of ignited airplane fuel exploding outward from the shimmering surfaces so inviolate a few moments before.

Time seems to stop. The words on the TV are incomprehensible sounds with no connection to what you've just seen.

The phone rings. On autopilot, eyes still glued to the devastation on the TV, you answer the phone. "Foster." A curt, clipped word, delivered in the same tones you've heard someone else use a million times. Virginia Lake, in England, calling to see if you've heard the news. Oh, yes, you've heard. A part of your mind is already running through the local contacts to see where you can get information. Mind control, a nasty slither of a voice in your memory brings forth those hated and terrifying words.

The installation beneath the WTC has been out of contact since the first plane hit the towers. Tucked into the substrata around the subway tunnels that run to the center, it should be safe, but there has been no word, no contact, nothing. If the aliens are not directly responsible for this disaster, they may be working under its cover.

"Keep Ford on the communications for another hour. After that, I want the Col. and one of his teams on their way over here. We need to be in on the investigation. I'll get it cleared."

The connection is severed. You wish it was a decade earlier. You wish he was still here, still in command. You wish his right hand was still here. But they're not and you are. Tears streaming down her face, your daughter turns to you for comfort as she has not in a couple of years. The very, very adult, independent young woman is again a child in need of comfort and reassurance. Her world has been assaulted, again.

You put your arms around your pride and joy and hold on as she cries and asks for answers. Who did this? How could they do this? Why? Why? Why? You don't have the answers for her any more than you do for yourself. Why do they come? Why do they steal humans? Why do they hunt us for our organs? Why are they still so elusive?

You shake your head and leave her for a moment to walk over to the windows. Pulling the drapes aside, you look toward the towers. You can see the smoke, black and unknowing, beginning to roll over the skyline. You tremble, hoping she doesn't see it. You suspect the enemy you have fought for twenty years, longer than she has been alive, is not responsible for this atrocity, but you aren't certain. There are still no answers for the questions that plague you both.

Ninety minutes later, the towers come down, one after the other. The world is in shock. Ford and his team are on their way in the fastest plane SHADO can field. They will transfer to a military ship to enter the U.S. All air traffic is shut down. The Pentagon has suffered an attack and another plane is down in Pennsylvania. Some terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for the attack and is now backing down, proclaiming innocence.

Terrorists. And the SHADO installation beneath the WTC is still silent.

The phone rings.

"Foster." Pause. It's the UN committee chairman calling. Due to the events unfolding before the eyes of the world, they wish to postpone today's meeting. "Understandable. I'm at your service when you are ready for me."

Back to the TV. Helpless. That's how you feel, how everyone feels. Beneath it all is a nagging feeling that this is not the last incident, that this is not all the work of normal human agencies. The installation has food, water, resources that the floors up in the air did not have. The people should be alive and well. Yet the continued silence denies these thoughts.

You leave her watching, appalled, entranced, terrified, as the drama unfolds. You place the calls that will let Ford and his team through; that will give them access to the tons of rubble clogging the streets around the WTC plaza area. The calls that express your horror at the activities of a few misguided individuals and that advise you and your organization stand ready to assist in any way possible.

No. At this time there is no indication that these are the acts of the enemy you fight. Just a handful of pathetically dedicated, misguided, fanatic adherents of a soon to be much maligned religion, just a few men who believed their god desired the death and destruction they have engendered; death and destruction which will unite the people of the country under attack as it has not been united in a long time. In the back of your mind, you almost feel sorry for the men who perpetrated this act. If there is an afterlife, Allah may be merciful, but fools are not appreciated or tolerable. They have sacrificed themselves, the innocents on the planes and those in the buildings for nothing.

Then the call to those off world. Moonbase. Marsbase. The SHADO platform. Col. Ellis is dry eyed, resolved. Yes, they've seen the news feed. If the Commander needs them, the Moon can go to skeleton crew and activate the drones for defense. There is no sign of alien activity.

Col. Barry on Mars is not so calm. Her son is currently assigned to the installation under the WTC. She is controlled, but expecting the worst. SHADO does that to you. Mars is too far away to offer more than condolences and assurances that they stand ready.

Lt. Yeoh on the platform looks sleepy. Her almond eyes are dark, unreadable. "We stand ready, Commander," she assures him in her accented English. She is all official and crisp in spite of the heavy lidded eyes. Then she relaxes slightly. "Commander, we are far away, but this is … we have no words. As we stand ready to protect, know that our hearts and spirits support you and those who have been harmed."

Her words, stilted and formal as they sound, touch that glacier within you. For the first time since you turned on the TV, you smile. "Thank you. We'll keep the lines open."

You have investigators on the way. You have volunteered all but the most basic resources. You will have answers when they have gone over the area. You will share your data then, and only then.

The last of the calls made, the last strings pulled, you return to your daughter. She is dry eyed for now, but you know that will not last.

Somewhere in the cold, dark depths of the earth beneath the rubble, you hope that your people have survived. And your thoughts are cold and dark with vengeance if they have not.


	2. Chapter 2

Below the Rubble:

"We're still jammed, nothing in or out."

Lt. Andrew James looked annoyed. He turned to his second in command. "Ericcson back yet?"

The woman in question came pelting into command before he finished the question. "Sir! We've got a problem." This was news? He waited while she caught her breath. "The subway channel is blocked. The elevators are all down. Power from the street is out. We're running on backup."

Lt. James was aware of all eyes being focused on him. "Get a team and get us through the blockage. Johansson, check all of our connections, see if you can get us something through."

"Yes, sir!"

"Well, looks like this installation wasn't the wonderful idea everyone thought it was," his second murmured, his voice like rotted silk caressing a carcass.

"Lt. Jackson, shut up."

"Yes, sir."

James looked around again. Damn. Foster was gonna have his hide.


	3. Chapter 3

Not quite Ground Zero, the Pentagon:

For just a moment, Caleb Moorecock was convinced he'd finally joined his reprehensible ancestors. Five seconds ago, he had been walking down a seemingly interminable corridor in the Pentagon, being routed to the fifth office that probably would not have a clue what to do with him since he started his search yesterday. He had been wishing he could find one of those brilliant but lacking in moral standards hackers he was always hearing about to get him in to the Pentagon computer archives instead of plodding through the officialese and red tape of going through channels. Then something had scythed into the side of the Pentagon like a rapidly cooling knife through something a bit tougher than butter and ripped away the hallway a hundred feet in front of him. The concussion threw him to the floor. He had rolled for the shelter of an open doorway as the force of the explosion that followed the impact caused the entire area to shudder and groan. The noise alone was terrifying.

He waited for the initial reactions of the building to settle before unwinding and coming to his feet. He stepped out of the doorway, one of many startled and frightened people reacting to the smoke and fire where the hallway had been. Most of the people around him started to head away from the damage. He and a couple of men in green uniforms worked their way toward the impact zone. Smoke clogged the hallway, obscuring their sight, except for flashes of flame. They lay on the floor and inched their way toward the damage.

Wreckage. Caleb chanced a look. Something had plowed into and most of the way through the building. He could hear stressed materials creak and crack around the opening. He looked again and was appalled. The roof had collapsed down onto the wreckage, but it looked like … a small jet of some kind had crashed into the building. How on Earth had that happened? He ducked back as a small explosion shook the area again. He and the other two men inched their way back, every nerve straining to catch the slightest twitch in the building around them. The floor sagged toward the opening, but did not seem to be actively falling. They regained their feet and joined the people leaving the area. There was nothing to be done for anyone in the impact zone.

Outside, emergency vehicles and news crews were converging on the building. As Caleb joined the throng of people, he noted the smoking hole torn in the side of one of the landmark buildings of his country and tried to fathom what had happened. He overheard a woman remarking that it was horrible, horrible. First New York and now this. New York? He walked to his car, got in and pulled out his cell phone. For a moment, he thought it had broken. It worked.

"Foster? Moorecock. What happened?"

"Where are you?" Foster asked.

"In the Pentagon parking lot, feeling both shaken and stirred. Someone crashed an airplane or something with an engine on it into the side of the building." He got a quick feed of what Foster, as well as anyone else watching the news, knew. Caleb was inclined to ask if the terrorists were out of their minds. But he knew the answer to that. They were, as far as normally sane people were concerned. "I'll be in touch." He knew Foster would be livid over that cavalier exit from Foster's nominal command. He had followed the silver haired fox who founded SHADO, never quite understanding why. When Foster took command, he had started to walk away, but he was too involved by then. Foster was good. He kept his most difficult operative busy, if not happy. But this was right up the renegade's alley and he would not let Foster or the rest of the organization stand in his way.

Aliens were annoying. This was pure human evil. This was his birthright, to hunt them down and deal with them. The smile on Caleb's face disturbed the people who chanced to see it. Nemesis was on the move.


	4. Chapter 4

Day Two

Lt. James brushed the hair out of his eyes, vowing to shave his head if he should survive this disaster. Auxiliary power had been cut back to only the absolutely necessary levels of output, which meant the air-conditioning units which sucked air into the installation and cooled or heated it at need, were only pulling air in from two of the subway located shafts, not from the ones located on the surface. When the towers above them collapsed, the surface vents were sealed off. Clouds of dust were sucked into the installation; causing a panic until some bright soul shut down the surface intakes and shifted to the subsurface ones. There was still air coming in through the subway intakes. At that point, Lt. James had made the decision to conserve energy as much as possible.

He had also come to the conclusion that something disastrous had happened on the surface and until they reestablished communications, they were on their own. His greatest fears were not for his current command, but for those they could not contact. Had the aliens finally launched the massed attack SHADO had feared for these years? Were the bases on the Moon and Mars gone? Was the platform gone? Were the underground installations in London, Sydney, Beijing and Northern Canada also buried beneath rubble?

Or were the personnel in New York the only target? He shuddered inwardly at the thought of what must have occurred to block their intakes with choking dust. Something must have happened to the towers of glass and steel above them. He knew a touch of sorrow then, but he did not give into it. He needed to be strong, and example to his people. Peripherally, he wondered how General Foster was doing.

He wondered, as they all did, how the Old Man and Freeman would have handled this. But Straker and Freeman were gone, six years dead and - well, hardly buried - the small experimental flying water wing was probably smashed flatter than it had looked when it was ready to be tested. Foster had muttered something about "what did you expect when you pattern it on something in a 1960's sci-fi program?" He had tried to turn down the leadership of SHADO then, had pointed out that since he'd been liaison to the Commission for several years, he was in no position to command. He'd tried to give the promotion to Gay Ellis, to Col Lake, to Ford.

James smiled to himself for a moment. For years, everyone had assumed that Foster still wanted command of SHADO. None of them had realized that the man had finally come to an understanding that he was better suited to field work and to the liaison work he did, that he enjoyed. Finally, Paul Foster had bowed to the Commission's decree and taken on the job of commanding SHADO. They'd even promoted him. Pointing out that the organization was large enough to warrant a General rather than a Colonel in charge of the place.

James hadn't been present for that blow up, he'd been a raw recruit - well, not too raw. He'd been chased by a spinner the night of his high school graduation in 1991. Now, he was showing a lot of talent and capability in the command fast track. He was happy about that. He'd heard that Foster had ripped into the committee for their treatment of Straker and SHADO for all those years. With Henderson gone, the Committee members had listened to the new Commander waxing eloquent and had not argued. Straker and Freeman got posthumously the recognition they'd deserved while they lived. Foster got the rank he needed to make things work, and the finances got a boost. All in all, it wasn't bad - except that that Old Man and Freeman were gone.


	5. Chapter 5

UN Committee Meeting:

You walk into the room feeling all eyes on you. You nod to those you recognize, and those you don't, making eye contact, willing them to listen and make the decisions you need to continue you work. You shove the memories of the twin Towers coming down out of your thoughts. You back burner your annoyance with Straker's Loose Cannon. You push away all the thoughts of anger, pain and frustration and concentrate on this handful of disparate personalities who need to be swayed to your side.

"Gentlemen."

"Ah, General Foster. So kind of you to agree to meet us today."

The head of this committee is so smarmy you want to push his face in, you want to demand why he's still here while men of better caliber in every way lie flattened at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, lie dead in the rubble of the Twin Towers or the debris of the Pentagon. Why not the UN with its facade of mirrored glass, the flags of so many countries waving on the breeze in front of it? But he knew the answer. The Americans had been the target, not the world in general.

And that meant this was probably not alien inspired. Still, one installation was out of contact, one installation full of the youngest, best and brightest SHADO had to offer you. You take a breath and begin with the formalities of greetings and "The Big Picture."

Two hours later, a seed of doubt sown in their minds, you make your good-byes and leave the Committee room. Tomorrow you will have your answer. You pray it is the right one. A wave of alien spinners on the heels of this disaster could turn the US front of solidarity into an "every man for himself" scenario. You wonder if Straker would have hinted that the terrorists, while full of anger and hate already, could have been manipulated into this atrocity. You sigh. Probably not, but Straker's sheer intensity could carry the day, you have to resort to other weapons. Just let it be enough. Worldwide support was the only way to stop the aliens.

For just a moment, you toy with the idea of outing the secret. Splash the aliens across the front page of the newspapers worldwide and see if it makes a difference. But, no. Too many innocents would be harmed. Just as there were already reports of innocent Muslims being accosted, called names, and being threatened for crimes they did not and would not commit, so would the world take the opportunity to turn on anyone who didn't quite fit in. Illegal aliens from the stars, what a perfect target for the rage and hostility of the planet.

No. That wasn't the way. You return to the flat where your daughter waits for you, her eyes reddened by her sorrow for the dead and bereaved left behind by the attacks of the day before. You walk into the flat and she flings herself at you, desperate for the comfort only Daddy can give. You want to give her reassurances, tell her it was all a bad dream; that it will ever happen again, but the words stick in your throat. Hundreds of thousands of US citizens, men, women and children, are suddenly stripped of the insular belief in their safety from such horrors. Terrorism is something that happens in Ireland, in England, in South America, in the Middle East, not in the US. Wrong. For several thousand people: dead wrong.


End file.
